Telemonitoring Adds No Benefit to Self-Management in COPD

By Joe Elia

Using home telemonitoring to treat chronic obstructive pulmonary disease does not delay patients’ hospital admissions or improve their health-related quality of life, a BMJ study finds.

Researchers randomized some 250 patients in Scotland who’d been admitted for COPD in the previous year. Patients received either home telemonitoring — through which they could report oxygen saturation and symptoms on a daily basis — or usual care. Both groups received instructions on self-management.

After 1 year, the telemonitored group showed no delay in their next admission for a COPD exacerbation (362 days vs. 361 for controls). Similarly, the duration of admissions and scores on quality-of-life measures did not differ significantly.

The results suggest that in COPD, according to editorialists, “the addition of telemonitoring … is costly and ineffective.”